Art's Blood (35 page)

“Why, she’ll be tickled. That little lady is a born entertainer. From the time she and Tildy first moved here, she’s had people coming to hear her tell those old tales and sing the old songs. Of course, her voice is gone and the arthritis keeps her from being able to play the banjo. They say she used to be quite a musician. But she still can hold an audience. And how she loves the spotlight! It’s the cutest thing: she just glows when she’s got a crowd to tell her stories to.”

The attendant paused. “Of course, it’s hard on Tildy. There she is, trapped in a wheelchair and not one word in ten will come out right. And nobody pays much attention to her when Fanchon’s around. But that’s the way it sometimes falls out with sisters— one’ll have all the gifts and the other’s left to eat herself up with jealousy.”

The woman looked around furtively and lowered her voice. “When they first moved in, Fanchon brought her banjo and had it hanging on the wall. The arthritis was already too bad to let her play but she said it made her feel good just to see it there for old times’ sake. And what do you think that spiteful Tildy did?

“Well, she was weak on her left side but she had full use of her right arm. And one day while Fanchon was in the dining room giving one of her entertainments for the residents, Tildy took her cane and hooked the banjo off the wall, and beat it till it was past repair. And Fanchon never let on that it bothered her a bit; just said her sister wasn’t rightly responsible sometimes.”

The paneled door bore a small card in a brass frame:
Mrs. Fanchon Strother and Miss Tildy Rector.
The attendant tapped at the door, then pushed it open. “Fanchon honey, there’s someone to see you.”

Two fat old women…old age done got ’em both
had been Dorothy’s pronouncement, and as Elizabeth looked at the occupants of the room, she saw it was sadly true. Two stooped, rotund figures sat on either side of an elegant Queen Anne–type table. Both had sparse white hair, permed into easy-care tight curls, and both had faces that had melted under the weight of the years into pudding-like countenances.

Cards were laid out on the table but as Elizabeth looked closer she saw that only the old woman on the left was playing— some complicated form of solitaire, it seemed to be. She slapped down a final card and croaked triumphantly, “There!”

Her companion stirred in her wheelchair and struggled to speak. “She…she…sheet!” Saliva flew from her lopsided mouth.

The attendant was at her side, plying tissues and gently scolding. “Now there, Miss Tildy, don’t go getting all worked up. Look here, a nice lady’s come to see you and your sister.” She caught Elizabeth’s eye and whispered, “She’s a little cranky sometimes. They get awful frustrated when they can’t say what they want to.”

She straightened the slumping woman, removing and plumping the small pillow at her back. “Now be sweet, Tildy. This lady wants to talk to Fanchon.”

A small tray with two empty glasses and some crumpled napkins caught the attendant’s eye. “I’ll just take this away and leave you all to enjoy your visit. Fanchon, if you need me, just buzz. I’ll be back at juice time with our nice snacks.” She slipped out of the door, leaving it slightly ajar.

The card player fixed Elizabeth with an inquisitive eye. “You want to hear the story about Obray and the pig? I cain’t sing no more, but I kin talk you through ‘Lord Randall.’ What school you from? You know, they wanted me to go up to the big folk festival in Washington, D.C., but I ain’t up to hit no more. Besides, I got to stay here and look after her.”

Elizabeth quickly explained that she was not a folklorist and that, though she would love to hear the story and the ballad, what she really wanted was Fanchon’s memories of the wonderful animal quilt. She told them how she happened to have it in her possession and that it was going to be the centerpiece of an exhibit at the county library. “We’ll have your name on it and take pictures to keep a record so people in years to come can see this wonderful thing and know that it was Fanchon Teague who made it. We may even make a book with pictures of the different quilts in it.”

As she began to unfold the quilt and drape it across the table, a sudden change came over the two old women. The woman in the wheelchair took one startled glance at the quilt and then she looked away, rocking back and forth and muttering the same two syllables over and over—“So-ree, so-ree, so-ree.”

The talkative card player, by contrast, laid both hands on the quilt and silently devoured it with her eyes. As each square received her intense scrutiny, tears began to creep down her wrinkled cheeks. At last she looked at Elizabeth and whispered, “They said hit was the finest piece of needlework ever done in the county— maybe even in the en-tire state….”

Her hands moved softly over the possum, the wildcat, the groundhog, and came to rest on the copperhead. “And little Omie had hit all along?”

“She said she wrote you and told you when she found it.” Elizabeth felt uneasy somehow, as if treading on dangerous ground. “She said that you wrote back that you didn’t want it.”

The old woman in the wheelchair stopped her repetitive sounds and looked across the table at her companion. Elizabeth was reminded of a cowering dog who, guilty or not, expects punishment. The frightened woman made a little whimpering noise and looked away again.

Her adopted sister seemed to be deep in thought. “You say you aim to hang hit up in the library in Ransom? And maybe put hit in a book?”

“I would really like to. It’s such a treasure; it deserves recognition. I wish you’d tell me all about how you planned it, and how long it took, where the fabrics came from— everything you remember. I want your story to go with it.”

There was a long silence and then the old woman spoke. “You say you want my story. Well, I reckon hit’s time. If you don’t care, go git me the fingernail scissors that’s in there in the medicine cabinet. I want to show you somethin’.”

Elizabeth quickly found the little scissors and returned to the table. Neither sister had stirred or spoken.

“I cain’t do hit on account of my fingers is too gnarled up. I want you to take and pick loose ’em stitches round that coppersnake.”

“But—”

“Now just do like I tell you; I got my reasons.”

Elizabeth carefully snipped and picked at the stitches she had so recently repaired till part of the appliqué was loose. As she pulled it back, the better to reach the remaining stitches, she could see embroidered letters: an
O
and an
R,
and above them a
Y
and
B.
“What—”

“Keep on pickin’ out that thread and you’ll see.” The quiltmaker’s face was stern but serene. “Git that ol’ snake off of there and you’ll see.”

The appliqué was finally removed, revealing the embroidered statement: MADE BY TILDY RECTOR 1934.

“I don’t understand.” Elizabeth looked across the table at the pathetic figure slumped in the wheelchair. “Aunt Omie called this the Fanchon quilt…I thought
you
made it.”

“That’s the truth: I did make it. I sewed on that thing night and day to have hit ready in time. My fingers bled on hit and I rubbed my spit on hit to take out the blood. I cut a piece of my best Sunday dress to make the redbird and I saved up my money to buy the special silk thread for the embroidery. Nights while that one over there was settin’ on the porch with ol’ Bragg, a-sparkin’ and a-spoonin’, I was settin’ with a kerosene lamp, ruinin’ my eyesight.

“And when the last stitch was in and they all said how fine hit was, what happens but they decide I ain’t pretty enough to be the one to see the President and I cain’t play the banjer and sing like ol’ Fanchon. Miss Lily give me more money than I ever seen to pick my name off and put on t’other. And I did like she said, for I wanted the money. But I picked off the coppersnake too, and put my name under him and sewed him back. Seemed fittin’ what with him havin’ that old redhead just like what Fanchon used to have.”

Elizabeth stared from one old woman to the other. “I don’t understand…the attendant called
you
Fanchon…I thought it was Tildy that had had a stroke….”

“That’s what I let ’em think all these years. But if my quilt, and hit’s the finest work I ever done, is goin’ to hang up for folks to see and be put in a book, I want my right name on hit. It’s
my
name folks should know about: Tildy. Tildy Rector.”

L
OVE IS AS STRONG AS DEATH AND JEALOUSY AS
cruel as the grave.
Aunt Omie’s words echoed in Elizabeth’s memory as she drove back to Marshall County after her visit with Fanchon and Tildy.
Not much love there, just jealousy— bitter, corrosive, lifelong jealousy.

Once the inscription on the quilt had been revealed, the whole sad story had poured out of Tildy. The pent-up righteous anger of years was unleashed as the words frothed and tumbled out of her mouth. It had been like watching someone peel a scab off an old wound in order to let it bleed afresh. Elizabeth had listened wordlessly as Tildy ranted on while Fanchon— the real Fanchon— slumping in her wheelchair, nodded assent to every twist and every turn of the story. Nodded— as the tears flowed down her pale, wrinkled cheeks.

“That one there, she was a right good musicianer, I’ll not deny hit. But I could tell the old Jack stories ever bit as good as her. And I plum left her in the dust when hit come to sewin’. But seemed all that the ladies at the Center could see was that she was pretty and I weren’t. Even Mommy and Daddy favored Fanchon over me— and her not even blood kin.”

Tildy had glanced scornfully at her once-beautiful rival. A line of saliva spilled from the drooping corner of Fanchon’s mouth and snaked its way toward her chin. “She ain’t so pretty now though, is she? Even afore she had her first stroke, that fine red hair had gone white and she had bulked up right much. And after the stroke, when she couldn’t git around good, why, she put on weight like one thing. Time Bragg died, there weren’t much to choose ’twixt her and me.”

A sly smile had creased Tildy’s face. “Tell the truth, once she had her stroke, Bragg liked me a good bit better ’n her. Said all cats was black in the dark. And leastways I weren’t crippled.”

Tildy had explained that after her parents’ death she had moved to Detroit when Fanchon wrote and offered her a home. “I reckon she felt sorry fer me after what she done. She didn’t know I had that money Miss Lily give me and money from when I sold the farm. Still have hit too; I just let her and Bragg take care of me the best they could. And believe you me, not a day went by that I didn’t tell her how bad hit had hurt that I didn’t get to see the President. Here she had done me out of my trip and then, at the last minute, throwed hit all away— and made off with my quilt too.”

“Why did she do that…run off at the last minute?” Elizabeth had asked.

“Aw shucks, now if that weren’t the most foolish thing of all.” Tildy’s voice had dripped derision. “She said that hit was on account of she was scared of Miss Lily; that Miss Lily had kissed her on the mouth and put her hand to her bare breast and Fanchon feared for what might happen was they to travel together.”

Tildy’s scornful look at Fanchon had been full of sour glee. “Shoot, ever one of us girls at the Center knowed Miss Lily was sweet on Fanchon— and we knowed she was one of ’em kind like Miss Geneva and Miss Caro. Ain’t no harm to hit; all this fool would of had to do was to say ‘git away’ and Miss Lily would of let her be. But no, Ol’ Fanchon, she has to bolt like a flushed rabbit and hide my quilt so can’t no one make her go to Washington with Miss Lily. And then when Bragg finds her, all a-tremble out in the woods, hit don’t take but a few words and off she goes with him. She said she was aimin’ to put the miles between her and that bad Yankee woman.”

And there were many miles. Bragg and Fanchon had gone to Detroit, like so many other young people from Marshall County, in search of employment in the auto factories. When word came of the deaths of Tildy’s parents, Fanchon, haunted by guilt for her treatment of her stepsister, had convinced Bragg that they should offer Tildy a home with them. The three had lived together, more or less harmoniously for years. There had been no children; Fanchon had never been able to carry a child past the fourth month.

The identity switch had occurred after Bragg’s death. Tildy had taken charge of the incapacitated Fanchon and the two had moved back to the mountains.

“Hit was ’93 and after all those years away I was hungry for the green hills and the clean-tastin’ water. I tell you what’s the truth: city water ain’t fit to drink. But I didn’t want to go back to Shut In— they’s too many bad memories back there. I rented us a little house in Barnardsville. We was makin’ it okay but Fanchon was gittin’ harder to take care of— just tryin’ to git her on the commode like to broke my back. Then one day some feller showed up at our place— said as how he’d heared that Fanchon Teague, the famous ballad singer from Shut In, was livin’ here and he wanted to ask her some questions about the ballads and stories what she had sung fer his daddy back in the thirties. Said he’d pay fifty dollars for an hour of Fanchon’s time.

“Well, I stood there in the door a-thinkin’. Fanchon was layin’ in the bedroom, a-dribblin’ in her diaper and couldn’t no more talk to anyone than could our cat. So I said, ‘Young feller, you come to the right place. I’m Fanchon Teague Strother. What is hit you want to know?’ ”

Tildy had cackled with delight. “Afore long, they was folks at the place ever Saturday night, with their tape recorders and their movie cameras and their notebooks. I tell you, I had me one fine time.

“And then Miss Lily showed up. In a big fancy car and a white man in a uniform a-drivin’ her. I didn’t know her till she said who hit was— but then, she didn’t know me neither. She looked at me and she looked at Fanchon, who was layin’ a-snorin’ in the recliner. ‘Fanchon?’ she says, real quare-like, lookin’ from one to the other.